Library Reference Number: 086
Air Crash in the Welsh Mountains
This aircrew story differs from most others, in that I have no recollection of events immediately before our aircraft crashed into a Welsh hillside, and of course being rendered unconscious on impact, I did not realise what had been happening until some time later. With the other three occupants of the aircraft being killed, my particular `aircrew experience' will therefore rely heavily on reports from other people, information on RAF Form 1180 (Accident Report Card), and of course my young rescuers to whom I shall be forever grateful.
It all started with a routine exercise whereby F/O William Auld, DFC, who had been a Navigation Instructor in Canada, returned to 51 Squadron and with whom had already completed a tour when he was detached to Central Navigation School, Shawbury to do a Specialist Navigation Course. On 21st August 1944, he was detailed to fly with F/Lt Grimshaw (another Navigator) and a W/Op named Ericksen on a night exercise. I was the Pilot. Our aircraft was a Wellington serial No.HZ699 and between Point of Ayr and Shawbury, the final leg of the four hour exercise, we crashed into a hill in North Wales. The two Navigators were killed instantly and the W/Op died on the way to hospital. I was the sole survivor.
As a result of the accident, I spent the next six months recovering in hospital at RAF Cosford. During this time, I became aware that a certain amount of correspondence was taking place. For example, my mother had been in contact with Mr. Smailes, Headmaster of Bingley Grammar School whose senior pupils had done so well.
Apparently the crash site was over three miles from Llangollen, with wreckage of our plane spread across a quarter of a mile. The school camping group said later that upon their arrival, two of the crew members had been clearly dead and that I had opened my eyes momentarily and said "English plane, Wellington, crew of four" before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
I firmly believe to this day that my survival depended on those young people camping in the vicinity. Apparently the closest person to the scene of the accident was an elderly farmer, who being extremely deaf had heard nothing, and thought the burning aircraft was flames from someone burning brushwood. The full extent of the young peoples' heroic actions came to light, when in October 1988, I decided to enter into further research of events after the crash. I placed a notice in the `Telegraph & Argus' Bingley newspaper, asking for any information on the boys from the Bingley Grammar School who had discovered the burning wreckage, and who had carried me down the hillside on an improvised stretcher in the form of a farm gate.
Although my mother had written at the time, to thank Mr. Smailes and the boys from the Bingley Grammar School, I also wrote a thank-you letter from the hospital though I had never actually met any of my rescuers since that fateful night of 21/22 August 1944.
My appeal for information was duly printed in the Bingley `Telegraph & Times' and produced some results. Retired Major John Botterill, a former pupil of Bingley Grammar School remembered the incident well and contacted me, as did Mr. Laycock, one of the former masters at the Grammar School. I also made contact with my W/Op's sister, and in June 1995, I was contacted by the niece of F/O Auld (one of the navigators killed in the crash). She lives in Ffestiniog and we visited the crash-site at that time. I have also made contact with others who were involved and hope we can remain in touch to commemorate the tenacity and courage of those young students who carried me down that remote mountainside in 1944.